


The Gift of Hunger

by deskclutter



Category: Saiyuki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-22
Updated: 2010-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:42:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deskclutter/pseuds/deskclutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kami-sama learns what hunger is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gift of Hunger

**Title:** The Gift of Hunger  
**Day/Theme:** March 05 / I am nothing, you are wind and devil and God  
**Series:** Saiyuki  
**Character/Pairing:** Kami-sama, Nii Jianyi  
**Rating:** PG

  
"Hunger's the best sauce," the boy heard someone laugh once as they walked away with their spit sliding down his cheek. "And kids, they love sauce, don't they?"

"Consider it our gift to you," his friend jeered. The first man chuckles nastily and they fade from the boy's view, just around the corner.

The boys does not understand what 'sauce' is, but he does not think on it as he watches the foil of the chocolate wrapper drift to the ground before he pounces on it and licks at the melted remnants.

He doesn't mind the hunger, though he won't turn his nose up at food. Hunger's a little kinda pain that he'll ease if he can, just like when he has to lie down after the big kids beat him up in playground sport made more vicious from desperation. Even then the cold drags sharp nails into his pain, and mostly he just aches all over. Hunger's just another ache, so he eases whatever he can, and leaves the stuff he can't.

One day the cold shifts in a different way and the nails bite a bit differently because they come from a different direction. Something is changing, he knows with all the assurance of children and fools, so he struggles to his feet and sees a man.

The man is tall and dark and he looks funny, like he's never been black with dirt and poor, which is weird because he wears black clothes with a white thing over his shoulders that has bits of black on it. He reminds the boy of a bird, like the ones to watch until no one touches the rubbish place, with its refuse and its shiny things, and then they silently eat. (The bird, finds the boy later, is a _raven_, which is a dreary bird, a midnight bird, a bird that croaks, but master won't. Master smiles instead.) He says, "Come, boy."

The boy stumbles in behind him, and he wants to become this man and fit into that skin like it's his skin. He is aching with the want to be this man, and it is an ache that feels worse than anything ever before. Oh, he thinks. This is what 'hunger' means.


End file.
